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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that the term 'making love' for a 3 year old is ridiculous

187 replies

ginplease8383 · 15/04/2018 18:43

DD3 was looking out of the window today and 2 pigeons on our garden fence started mating. DD piped up and asked what they were doing and I replied that they were play fighting (not thinking that this sort of discussion is appropriate for a 3 year old). DH pipes up that the pigeons are 'making love'. I shot him a look and later told him that he wasn't to say that again or anything like it again until she was much older. He disagreed that it was inappropriate to which I said Id give nursery his number to tell him its not when she starts repeating it at nursery.

AIBU and a bit sensitive or not?

OP posts:

biscuitraider · 16/04/2018 13:18

pigs that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, because yours didn't.

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 13:20

I'm not saying it does, but as I said we have the worst rate of underage pregnancy in this country and the worst sex education.

Orchardgreen · 16/04/2018 13:21

It's probably best to avoid euphemisms. When I was a child, I used to read books too old for me. So I assumed that "making love" meant, according to those novels, snuggling up to someone on a sofa.
One day I was cuddling the cat and told my mother we were making love. She was absolutely furious, told me to never say it again, and I was completely bewildered about what I had done wrong.

Mummyoflittledragon · 16/04/2018 13:25

biscuit
That will have been a child learning from another older child. They won’t necessarily even understand the finger and hole refer to a penis and vagina. They may just know the word “sex” and the finger actions.

Moonlight
I agree totally, my friends dd for example at 11 asked her mother a question relating to sex - can’t remember what it was and she lied because they don’t talk about that sort of thing. Weird. Dd has been brought up knowing about death for example and was always answered honestly. It’s only fair to prepare her for losses in life and to inform in an educational way. As for sex and birth, at 9, dd now knows what it is all about but doesn’t want to talk a great deal about it.

NathusiusPip · 16/04/2018 13:27

Talking about "mating" in a casual way could encourage kids to think it's ok to have a quickie down a back alley when they're barely in their teens.

Seriously??

Mummyoflittledragon · 16/04/2018 13:28

Biscuit
So what was loveless meant to say? Lie? Wait til you’re older? I don’t agree her dd will therefore be horrified.

freshstart24 · 16/04/2018 13:31

No need to hide this stuff from a 3yo.

I don't think making love applies to birds though?

They were in fact mating- so that would have been my choice of words. Probably followed by the fact that mating is how babies are made....

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 13:33

That reminds me Orchard, when I was at secondary school 500 years ago, we had a rather staid teacher who used to use the expression 'making love to' as a sort of euphemism for having a chat; I know it sounds odd but I think it was just an expression that some people used back then.

One day someone popped their head round the classroom door and asked if anyone new where Miss Jones was and got the reply from staid teacher 'Oh yes, she's making love to Miss Smith' - not their real names.

Collapse in hysterics of 25 teenage girls.

NorbertTheDragon · 16/04/2018 13:34

I think that's the most hilarious thing I've read! That talking about mating pigeons will encourage kids to have quick shags down back alleys!

It didn't happen to my curious kids, but you never know. I may have to have words with them later just in case that was the message they got from my simple explanations of where babies came from when they were 3 years old.

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 13:36

*anyone knew, not new

ButternutCrinkleFries · 16/04/2018 13:55

shirley I think of most kids saw birds mating, asked what was happening and you said ‘cuddling’ they would tell you that they’re not. Because they’re very evidently not bloody cuddling!

Dancingleopard · 16/04/2018 13:55

Absolutely cringing st some of the posts on here

biscuitraider · 16/04/2018 14:38

Mummy it's not hard to come up with something that'd satisfy a 3 year old, "just messing about," perhaps. Why lie about father Christmas and the tooth fairy? just tell it to them straight eh?

ButternutCrinkleFries · 16/04/2018 14:40

Don’t worry norbert the thought of pigeons ‘making love’ is enough to put anyone off sex for life. I’m sure the ‘sex down alley kids’ will be evened out by the ‘scarred for life at the thought of sexy pigeons kids’.

biscuitraider · 16/04/2018 14:45

I'm not saying it does, but as I said we have the worst rate of underage pregnancy in this country and the worst sex education

My point proven right there!

Talking about sex so freely and casually to three year olds isn't going to help then is it. It's the blasé attitude to sex where teenagers see it as quite normal to have sex on the first night of meeting that is partly to blame.

OwlDoll · 16/04/2018 14:54

We were sitting at the dinner table one evening a few weeks after Dd2 was born. I happened to say something about her being our last child. My 10 year old son son said "oh, will you and daddy not be mating again?"
He is an avid watcher of David Attenborough

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 14:56

How is that proving your point, when it's proving the complete opposite.

People in this country tend not to educated their children about sex from an early age. So children are kept as ignorant as possible for as long as possible. School sex education starts much later than in the rest of Europe and Scandinavia.

And we have a very high rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy.

In Scandinavian countries for example, they start educating their children about sex from an early age.

And they have a very low rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy.

Therefore one would conclude that educating children about sex from a young age results in fewer unwanted teenage pregnancies and a more responsible attitude towards sex.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 16/04/2018 14:57

It's the blasé attitude to sex where teenagers see it as quite normal to have sex on the first night of meeting

Do they? Really? All of them?

My, that's shocking. If true. Which it isn't.

Source: have teenagers. Teach teenagers. Do pastoral work with teenagers. You're talking bollocks.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 16/04/2018 15:02

And we have a very high rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy.

We don't. It's halved in the last ten or so years. In 2015 it was 21 per 1000 under 18, in 2007 it was 41.6 under 18. I think it's now yet lower.

Only 2% of girls aged under 18 get pregnant per year. Bearing in mind that for a large part of that cohort it's entirely legal for them to be not only sexually active but married, either they aren't having all the sex the pearl-clutchers claim, or they are being a great deal more competent with contraception that the catastrophists claim.

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 15:05

I'm giving up with this thread, it's giving me a headache.

'Oh look there's the moon it must be nigh time'.
'No it's daytime'.
'No it's night time. If it were daytime the sun would be out'.
'There that proves my point, if the moon is out it must be daytime'.

Pointless.

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 15:07

Well, perhaps our sex education is improving then if the rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy is down. it used to be incredibly high.

Coyoacan · 16/04/2018 15:10

Talking about "mating" in a casual way could encourage kids to think it's ok to have a quickie down a back alley when they're barely in their teens

I think a girl that knows that that type of behaviour can make her pregnant is in a much better position to make decisions about her actions than a poor child that has been kept "innocent".

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 16/04/2018 15:11

Well, perhaps our sex education is improving then if the rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy is down.

It is. Contrary to the pearl-clutching, teenagers in general are getting good sex education, good-ish relationship education, access to contraception where necessary and empowering cultural messages. Teenage pregnancy rates are down.

Sadly, it suits the purposes of some people to point to pockets of deprivation (material, emotional, educational and cultural) where teenage pregnancy is just one of the many problems that children face, and from that extrapolate to all teenagers. It's somehow acceptable to start sweeping, and negative, generalisations "All teenagers are.." in a way that if said of other grounds (sex, orientation, ethnicity) would be seen as the bigotry it is.

The teenagers I deal with every day are smart, well-adjusted, ambitious, empowered and sensible. I'm lucky to teach them. People who think that they are drooling sex-crazed idiots only one fumble from an abortion should fuck off back to the Daily Mail comment section where they will be happier.

heateallthebuns · 16/04/2018 15:12

I am crying at Special Bird Cuddles.

I would've said mating, course three year olds are old enough to understand that! They see enough pregnant mums and it's a common age to get a baby brother / sister. The earlier you start with age appropriate sex education the better.

pigsDOfly · 16/04/2018 15:13

Which no doubt proves the point that the better you educate children and young people about sex the more responsible they will be.

That's very good news Cuboidal I didn't realise thing had improved so dramatically.

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